Economy, Society and Space

Module code: GY2412

This module provides a thorough overview of the global economy. It traces the emergence of the ‘global economy’ from variety of spatial and temporal scales; it assesses the ways in which global economies interrelate with global political systems, and it examines the ways in which economic and political systems are approached within Human Geography. The module draws on a case studies from key ‘regions’ and key economic sectors to provide a comprehensive and critical analysis of the processes that lead to and resist economic ‘globalisation’.

Each week’s lectures and workshops focus on key concepts of economic geography within a variety of spaces, contexts and scales. Lectures focus on theoretical as well as geographical dimensions of the geo-political economy, whilst the workshops are designed to give you time to reflect on issues in more depth. This includes how different groups have variously resisted and reproduced the global political economy at a variety of scales.

Topic covered

• The world of objects, commodities and ‘things’ which surround us and comprise our daily economic lives
• The places and spaces where economies are practiced, performed and reproduced
• The relationship between ‘global’ economies and a range of local and individual economic practices.
• The ways that (seemingly) disparate regions and practices are interconnected vis-à-vis historic and contemporary modes of globalisation 
• The processes by which everyday acts surrounding consumption joins individual consumers to vast networks of producers and production